My father, Michael, was the eldest son of Isaac and Balche (née Eidelman) Finger, and the brother of Chanale.
Isaac Finger was a timber merchant, the owner of the largest timber warehouse in Hrubieszow, and had extensive business connections throughout the Lublin region. The family had a strong Zionist orientation: Isaac headed the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Hrubieszów, and my father was sent to study in Warsaw at the Higher Seminary for Religious Studies to prepare him, one day, to immigrate to Israel. My father, Michael, used to proudly tell me that during his years in Warsaw, he corresponded with his father in Hebrew.
My father and grandfather were captured in the second mass murder but managed to escape and hid in the forests. They remained together until the end of the war. A week before Passover in 1945, my grandfather Isaac passed away from typhus. My father spoke very little about that difficult times, and I consciously refrained, with trepidation, from asking him. On the surface, I was protecting my father’s choice to remain silent, but at the same time, I was protecting myself-I fled, I ran away from the pain. Today, I deeply regret this, as I know very little about my father’s experiences in Hrubieszow, and what I do know I gathered from his friends only after his death.
My parents met and married in the Selzheim displaced persons camp near Frankfurt a.m.
After immigrating to Israel in 1946, my parents settled in Holon. My mother, Sarah, was a nurse, and my father was an educator. While serving as the principal of the Hankin School in the city, he initiated a dialogue between the school and the high school in Hrubieszow. This connection has lasted for more than three decades.
Although my father spoke little about his own experiences during the Holocaust, he invested significant effort in preserving the memory of the Holocaust in his school. He adhered tirelessly to two principles:
1.The Holocaust must not become a “player” in the political arena—politics would commercialize and cheapen it.
2. We must never adopt a “victim mentality,” as such a mindset inevitably leads to moral deterioration. The victim always believes they are right. As a victim, one assumes a high moral “seal of approval” (after all, we have already suffered enough). Therefore, adopting a “victim mentality” is necessarily a slippery moral slope.
My father, Michael Drori, passed away during Sukkot in 5759 (1998) and was buried in Holon.